Critical Incident Timeline. Are you prepared?

Understanding how a critical incident develops can help us to know what to expect when an incident happens for real. So far this year there have already been a number of high profile critical incidents affecting organisations. Most recently the escalation of the Algerian hostage crisis has been a major news story. Last week, the first ever helicopter crash in London sparked a critical incident that, whilst more local in impact, was headline news and impacted organisations caught up in the maelstrom of unfolding events.  Studying how the news unfolded in this stand alone tragic accident can help us to assess the realism of the timelines in our own continuity exercises and critical incident simulations. In this blog post I present a timeline for the helicopter incident and briefly discuss critical incidents from an organisational impact perspective.

Building the timeline

What I have done below is to build a timeline of the helicopter crash incident, as best as I have been able to pin it down from an observers perspective. I have adjusted all times back so they can be measured from the start of the incident, a point which I have called H-Hour. Note that this timeline only covers the first eight hours, after which time the media story had been overtaken by the Algerian terrorist incident. Looking at the unfolding story allows us to break the incident down into phases, of which four can be easily identified:

Phase One: What has happened? (the OMG phase)

Phase Two: How did it happen? (the search for reason and justification)

Phase Three: The Blame Game  (the knee jerk reaction and deployment of political agenda)

Each of these phases is layered over the one before it in a way that, by the time the incident is 5 or 6 hours old, all three can be ongoing at once.

Phase Four: Extended investigation  (the press lose interest). My thinking at this time is that this stage commences when phases one and two are completed but can be delayed by significant rumblings under phase 3. This phase of course extends into disaster recovery and a potentially long road back towards normality, or  possibly a new state.

 

The timeline:

Approximate incident timeline of the first 8 hours following the helicopter incident:

Time	Event	Incident Phase
H-Hour	Unexpected event  happens (8am) In thick, early-morning fog a helicopter collides with a construction crane situated on the top of a new build tower block in the centre of London. In a split second, flaming debris from the helicopter falls to earth, causing injuries and a fatality.	One
H + 1 min	Emergency Services called.	One
H + 5 mins	Emergency services respond: Police first to arrive	One
H + 10 mins	First tweets appear on Twitter. Mainly sensational outbursts from passers by . Some have images.	One
H + 45 mins	First dedicated news items appear on media. Breaking news. High degree of uncertainty. Focus of attention is on WHAT HAS HAPPENED. Knowledge seeking phase. A twitter #hashtag is already in evidence.	One
H + 50 mins	First video postings via twitter etc are rebroadcast by media	One
H + 1 hour	First reports of congestion around scene. Situation still uncertain.  Headlining on media. Some reporters on site. “I heard a very unusual dull thud, then there was silence” - Eyewitness	One
H+ 1¼ hrs	Detailed eye witness reports on media. First public transport closure decisions publicised. “I had no clue as to what was going on. The crane came down just in front of a car and there weren’t any pedestrians there at that moment. Initially we thought it might be a terrorist attack.” – Eyewitness.	One
H+ 1½ hrs	First police statement made. Experts start to appear on media being questioned on ‘what might have happened’ First official confirmation of fatalities First official reactions. Transport back ups start to become significant	One / Two
H+ 1¾ hrs	Still lots of ‘friction’ (eg river searches) and speculation. Experts feel confident enough to rule out terrorist incident. Some details emerges on what has happened to survivors (ferried to which hospital etc)	One/Two
H + 1¾ hrs	Picture of what happened is clearing.	One/Two
H + 2 hrs	Emphasis shifting away from WHAT happened towards HOW it happened	Two
H + 2¼ hrs	Speculation debate rife across media. “What issues contributed to disaster”. Becomes theme for press conference held next.	Two
H + 2½ hrs	Full Emergency Services Press conference. Police confirm number of deaths known so far, major and minor injuries, which hospitals they have gone to etc. Still lots of uncertainties and rumours that more people might be involved. Not exactly sure whether dead are from helicopter or ground.	One/Two
H + 3 hrs	Mayor of London makes public comment. Political counter comment. More eyewitness accounts.	One/Two/Three
H + 3½ hrs	Statements from companies and corporations involved begin to come out. “I told you so” complaints  get media coverage. The Blame Game gets underway	One/Two/Three
H + 4½ hrs	Media have professional photos and video available, as well as images of ‘pre-event’ situation, and library photos of equipment/aircraft involved. Downing Street Comment. HM Opposition counter comment. Ambulance Service releases statement updating the situation with regards to injured.	One/Two/Three
H + 4¾ hrs	Emergency Services Press Conference. Air Incident team in place. Media start to broadcast full interviews with eyewitnesses and those affected by the events	One/Two/Three
H + 5 hrs	Details released about helicopter owner or other corporations involved. Press statements from them follow: eg: http://www.nineelmslondon.com/news/co-chairs-statements-on-helicopter-crash	One/Two/Three
H + 5½ hrs	“Miracle escape” stories abound on the media “Suddenly you are in the middle of this nightmare that just happened in front of you. You are going to work in the morning and suddenly this thing comes out of the blue” – man who narrowly escaped being struck by a falling helicopter.	One/Two/Three
H + 5¾ hrs	Police Commissioner addresses London Assembly	One/Two/Three
H + 6 hrs	Name of first dead man is released. (note that this may be a trigger point for critical incident for employing organisations)	One/Two/Three
H + 6½ hrs	Most of earlier speculation is now cleared.	Three – signs of four
H + 6¾ hrs	More details emerge about dead man. More details emerge about events leading up to crash (take off times etc)	Three and four
H + 7¼ hrs	Company that employed dead man release press statement	Three and four
H + 7¾ hrs	Media focuses on dead man and statistics of previous incidents or near misses. Tributes flood for dead man from former employers, colleagues, team mates, neighbours etc	Three and four
H + 8 hrs	Media focused on fleshing out details. By now crash has been knocked off the headline by new incident (terrorist attack in Algeria). Incident remains local news headline.	Four

What is the organisational impact of this?

In the London helicopter crash, the two professional organisations most closely associated with the incident - the civil aviation authority and the construction industry – have high levels of preparedness and procedure when it comes to dealing with Health and Safety incidents. Construction companies strive endlessly for ever reducing incidents of site related injuries and the aviation industry has a some very mature procedures and is well practised at the art of incident investigation. And then of course there are the emergency services. We expect of course that they will take such incidents almost in their stride. Why do we expect this? Because responding to critical incidents is what they do best. We expect that they will be able to adapt. We expect that they will respond in a matter most appropriate for the incident at hand. And we know that we are in safe hands. It’s their raison d’etre. It’s what they train for again and again.

But the other organisations involved may not have had a response plan set down. The helicopter was run by Castle Air and the pilot was employed by Rotormotion. The other man who died was an employee of Rentokil. Each of these organisations have had to cope with the consequences of this high profile incident. Aside from the personal grief and tragedy that can overwhelm teams at this moment, organisations need to be able to deliver a swift and co-ordinated public response, co-operate with emergency and investigative services an most importantly in my mind, show a human side. Responding in critical moments is hard to do, as such situations are characterised by uncertainty, anxiety and potential risk. Even though two of the three companies I have highlighted are in the aviation industry the chances are that none of the organisations were prepared for such an event, and it is likely therefore that the teams responsible for dealing with them faced the incident armed only with their own personal history and the best of intentions. And if I was the Chief Exec that would worry me. The impact of these events on those companies are still playing out.

The Castle Air message

Capturing the learning

Tragic though these situations are, they do offer learning opportunities. Sadly, making the most of these opportunities is difficult due to the very nature of events, but in some way this is a cop out. Reflective practice, something that is so highly valued when attributed to individuals, also applies to the most resilient organisations. Companies should be geared up to reflect rapidly on their own experiences and their plans should include measures to allow this to happen. At the the very least they should include a formal opportunity to reflect on what happened, and to consider improvements or developments that need to be made as a consequence.  Helping people to cope with the human side of such tragedy is also an important feature. Not only would such activities strengthen the organisational ability to cope in a similar situation should it happen again, but where tragic loss of life is involved, can help people come to terms with what has happened, forming part of an organisational grieving process and satisfying the very human need to identify a reason for why such things happen.

For if we do not prepare our organisation to deal with such critical moments then how can we expect an appropriate and resilient response? If we do not, in some way, prepare our organisation to cope with the trauma that a critical incident can bring then how can we expect it to bounce back? Time is a healer, but where reputational damage is done this healing might never come. Preparation and planning allow appropriate response, and might even promote changes that lead to avoidance of the incident in the first place.

Conclusion

I need to finish this entry at this point, but let me end on this message. The most amazing thing about incidents such as the Vauxhall helicopter crash is not that they happen but that they do not happen more often. Critical incidents occur with startling frequency across the globe. Just pick up your newspaper for those that have impacted in the past 24 hours. We can say with certainty that at some point somewhere in the world an organisation is experiencing a critical incident at this very moment. Wityhout scaremongering it is fair to say that the possible range of issues is almost limitless. From hijacked compounds in the Sahara (BP), the collapse of your market (HMV) or the possible collapse of faith in your product (Boeing and it's Lithium ion batteries)  the next crisis is just around the corner. The question is are our organisations equipped to cope with such incidents when they occur? Some industries and organisations are heavily regulated and are used to dealing in high risk situations. For the vast majority of everyday companies there is no precedent when it comes to dealing with critical moments. Very often management will say that there are too many scenarios to validate any preparation or planning. But whilst we cannot say with any certainty that a specific critical incident will happen what we can say, and I think we can say it with absolute confidence,  is that an incident of some kind is highly likely during an organisations planning horizon. The organisations that are best able to cope with such incidents are those that rehearse and prepare and give themselves a flexible posture to enable them to react in the right way at the right time.

 

For more details on the timeline see also the Guardian website.